A Single Red Branch

Winter's coming. 

(Shhhh.  Did I really say that?  Right out loud?  [shudder]  I should have my mouth washed out with soap.)

Leaves are changing color. 

This year, more than other years, I'm noticing how one branch's leaves will turn red or orange, while the rest of the tree's leaves are still green.  It's so patchy.  And it's not just one or two trees; many are showing the same pattern.  It seems odd.

Then I think of people's hair.  How my gray hairs all come from the same small patch on my head.  How a man's beard will change with one stripe graying before the rest.  How some people will turn gray at their temples first.

Maybe those trees are more like us than I thought.

Toward the End of Summer

Now, THIS is the way to do schoolwork!  (Although her chair was in the shade, mine was in the sunshine.)

But, ... but, ... but ... hostas and sedum aren't supposed to be blooming anywhere close to the same time.  They should bloom two months apart.  This is SOME weird weather.

PS: In case anyone cares [Cheryl] this is blogpost #4000. 

Rainbow

Driving home from a visit to Mom, we watched the storms passing behind us or to the south of us. Certainly an interesting weather lesson! But the coolest thing was the rainbow -- the most vibrant one I'd seen in my life. And the fattest.

(after it had already faded quite a bit)

The evening before I'd been reading "Heaven Is for Real," and (whether it's true or not) I thought it was interesting to have read about all the colors in heaven and then to see this glorious rainbow.

Finally, A Warm Day!

That was last weekend.  This weekend we're back to closed windows, jackets outdoors, and the furnace turned on.

My friend Jenny has been vindicated once again.  She says you never take off the winter bedding until the peonies bloom.  But we were tired of getting so HOT under that comforter.  And we were a full week into May, for cryin' out loud.  The peonies weren't blooming; surely Jenny had to be wrong.  I swapped out the down comforter for a thin quilt.

Jenny wasn't wrong.  We slept comfortably for two nights without the down comforter.  Now it's cold again.

But at least it is NOT snowing!  Whew!

Snow

Snow-mixed-with-rain every day this week.  But we've comforted ourselves with "At least it's not sticking." 

And this morning, middle of April, I look out the window ...

and it's sticking. 
It's not deep enough to shovel yet.
But the grass, the deck, the neighbors' roofs -- snow.


Intellectually I know that I'll be leaving the house without a winter coat in, oh, say, a month.  But in my gut I don't believe it will ever happen:  I'll be wearing a winter coat for the rest of my life ....

Chilly Easter

So I think this was the first Easter Vigil ever where I sang the Song of the Three Young Men (including the lines "You frost and cold, bless the Lord; you ice and snow, bless the Lord") when there was ice and snow right outside the window next to me. 

And then shortly before sundown on Easter, after all the kids had left, I looked out the window, and what did I see?  Snow.  More snow than mere flurries.  Snow dumping out of the sky.  It had been warm enough that it didn't stick to the deck for more than a few minutes.  But still. 

Yoo hoo!  Spring?  Where are you?




But you know what was cool?  On Easter morning, with all the grey skies and the cloud cover, there was not a hint of being able to tell where the sun was hiding behind those thick clouds.  And as the organist was playing the intro to "Thanks to Thee, O Christ Victorious" I was hearing the [ahem] real first verse to that hymn (TLH 207) which is:
Like the golden sun ascending,
breaking through gloom of night,
on the earth its glory spending
so that darkness takes to flight,
thus my Jesus from the grave
and death's dismal dreadful cave
rose triumphant Easter morning
at the early purple dawning.

And that was when the sun broke through for all of about two minutes.  Just long enough to shed light on that hymn!  Like the sun and the creation just had to bust in and join the celebration indoors at the altar!

The War Against the Ice-Dams

On those days before Christmas when it was raining, how often did I thankfully say, "At least we don't have to shovel it"?

Well, maybe that didn't turn out as well as I'd thought at the time.

So it turns out that the pre-Christmas rain, snow, slush, goo, froze into several inches of packed snow and ice on the roof and in the gutters. A week later when it snowed, I could roof-rake the new snow down. But not those inches of ice. Underneath the snow-ice were, in places, several inches of solid ice, just threatening to be ice-dams with the first thaw, diverting thawed snow into the attic instead of having it drip into the gutters or off the roof.

So it had to go.

Except on days I had to be at "work" [ha ha ha ... the place where I go to rest up] I spent hours daily on the ladder, with a hoe, hacking off small slices of snowpack, trying desperately to be gentle enough to Not Touch The Shingles while being vicious enough to crack the ice that needed to come down.

I'm trying to think of a part of my body that didn't ache from the work.  Not figurin' it out...


BUT you can see the results over the front door: several feet of roof that had been cleared and then sat in the sun for a couple of days.  Woo hoo!!!


And yesterday, with the warm weather, no ice dams!  No icicles!  (Now we just hope that the clean-up efforts didn't cause a different set of roof problems.)

Strawberries

I guess we'll be buying them this year instead of eating delectable homegrown ones.  

After that warm spell in early March, the weather seemed to go into refrigeration mode.  My strawberry plants didn't know what to make of it.  After lots of pruning away last year, they needed to replenish themselves, but haven't been able to.  When I checked the patch today, I saw that the plants were already blooming and quite a few of the strawberry flowers had black middles, which I suspect means they were killed by one of the recent frosts.

The small cherry tree suffered the same fate.  It looks pitiful.  The larger, older cherry tree blooms later and will probably bear a little.  Luckily, the apples haven't bloomed yet.

Y'know, this isn't the solution I was wanting for carpal-tunnel problems that result from hulling strawberries and pitting cherries.

So Cold. So Tired.

The last week I've been freezing. It had been especially warm, so why the chills? I'm suspicious that the warmth at work might be making the 65-68° at home feel uncomfortable. I also suspect that my lack of daily outdoor exercise -- whether it's 25° or -10° -- has made me wussy.

Haven't been able to stay awake recently either. I was actually grateful for a big ol' problem at work earlier this week: it required my mind to stay aware and engaged at the time of day where I'd be snoozing on the couch were I at home.

With a calendar that looked exceedingly bare this week (woo hoo!) I had toyed with the idea of a visit in central Illinois, squeezed in between my days at work. But after a few afternoons of daily naps and being so so cold, my brain said, "You idiot, you're on the verge of getting sick. Don't drive ten hours. Stay home and get extra rest." So with sadness I dismissed the idea of visiting my mommy (who probably wasn't up to company this week anyhow).

After driving home from chapel this morning and watching cars fishtail all around me, maybe it's just as well that I didn't make the trip. The flurries forecast for today are no mere flurries.

Plumbing

In past years, reading history to the kids, I remember my shock at the reaction of people when toilets were invented. "What? You'd do THAT in your house? Oh, it would stink. Clean people wouldn't give up their outhouses."

It's a whoppin' 1 degree this morning.

I am thankful today for indoor plumbing that flushes.

Sun Chart

Short days.
Long nights.

If there are too many dark, cloudy days in a row, a person with Seasonal Affective Disorder will become sad. A few years ago, I started keeping a sun chart. It doesn't change the weather, but it can change my expectations of myself.
A big "S" on a day means sunny. A "1/2 S" might mean a sunny morning or a sunny afternoon. A dash equals a cloudy day. I might write "minutes of sun" if there were a few times during the day when it was bright enough that trees left shadows.

This is not a chart about weather or my neighborhood or even reality. This is a chart about my own eyeballs. If it's a sunny day but I'm locked up at an all-day meeting in a windowless room, that day gets marked as No-Sun. If it's snowy and dark at home but I'm under sunbeams in central Illinois, the day is marked with a big fat S.

I can take Vitamin D3, but I can't shoo away clouds for the sun to shine through. I can, however, respond to lack of sun. If we've had three days of darkness, I can look at the chart and know that the first time Mr Sun peeks out, I better toss myself outdoors or at least plunk myself down in the big bay window. If the darkness persists and there's no sun to be had, I have to lighten up on the pressure of the to-do list. This translates into asking kids to clean the bathrooms, ignoring cobwebs, buying instafood for supper, and finding some hilarious movies to waste time on. It's the mental equivalent of a thermometer: a person might feel tired but be unable to tell whether it's sinful laziness or a viral infection. The thermometer clues you in. If it's viral, several naps might help. If it's sinful laziness, indulging oneself probably isn't a good plan. The sun chart can show me when it's a physiological weakness from sun-deficiency.

Too Hot? Too Cold?

A couple of weeks ago, Maggie couldn't exercise. It was too hot, you see. It was, oh, maybe 80° out.

So today we talk about whether she should get up for chapel tomorrow. I could drop her off at church, and she could walk home. "What??! It's cold outside." Yes, the weather has cooled off considerably. I've actually started wondering how long until frost. I'm wondering how the refrigerator temperatures overnight are going to affect my tomatoes which are still ripening on the vine.

But c'mon ... It's too cold to exercise? Does this kid have a 3° window when the temperature is acceptable, or what? I maintain that God gave us sweatshirts for a reason.

Measuring Time by the Dirty Dishes

It's that season of the year when I can't ever find a clean glass.

We're not often using plates right now. Lunch might be a piece of fruit. Or maybe a sandwich that we pick up and eat, or maybe even get a paper towel for. But we're drinking and drinking and drinking. Lemonade, water, sweet tea, water, Sustain (Melaleuca's much-better version of Gatorade). When I wash dishes, it's all butter knives (for making sandwiches) and drinking glasses.

There are certain times of winter when the dirty dishes are all bowls and spoons and mugs. Oatmeal and soup and chili. Coffee and tea and cocoa.

How about that? Gauging the season of the year by my stack of dirty dishes.

Rocks in the Rain

Just when you could use a run of sunny days to help a newborn overcome her slight [and perfectly normal] jaundice, the forecast has days and days of clouds and rain. And rain it did during church this morning! When you looked out the door after church, it looked like there'd been snow, the hail was piled so deep. Luckily, the massive amounts of hail came down in tiny pieces.

Interesting perspective to be in the back of the church, with the lights thinking about flicking out, seeing the zots of lightning out the window, hearing huge rumbles of thunder, glad to know the words Pastor was saying from the liturgy because the banging of hail on the roof sometimes made it a bit hard to hear. It made me think of Noah and Mrs Noah in the ark, safe and secure inside the refuge God had provided, no matter what was going on outside. In reality, that's what church is every Sunday, even when the weather is lovely; the devil and the world rage against her, but inside we are safe.

Anyway ... while we visited with our family's Chicago-Contingent in the narthex after church, and of course ogled Baby Zoe, Alia decided she had to go outside. Philip accompanied her to ensure that she didn't go out into the traffic of the parking lot or wade through 40° water up to her ankles. When he wouldn't let her wade, she had to walk on the driveway littered with pebble-sized hail. "There were rocks in the rain!" Yes, dear, that's about the size of it.

Deep Snow

No getting out the front door this morning. It wouldn't budge. We raised the garage door, made a narrow path, and started moving snow.

Gary hurt his back shoveling yesterday. He collapsed last night; his legs just wouldn't hold him. I've called doctors' offices, but they aren't open today. He's doing better now, he can get himself to a stand. We haven't decided yet whether to try to get him to the hospital or wait till tomorrow in hopes of finding the D.O. or chiropractor or family doctor available. Just in case, Andrew and I managed to break through about 1/3 of the driveway's width, in hopes that we could squeeze the car through that passage.

After some breakfast and a rest, it's back outside to make sure the vents are clear, start roof-raking, and then try to free the front door.

Snow

Three dig-outs and counting.

This stuff is WAY lighter and easier to shovel than the Snow of Good Friday '08. (That was overwhelming: shovel, church, shovel, church, shovel, church, shovel. A memorable day.) I expect the light fluffiness, however, will mean we get to shovel the same snow multiple times when the winds start. ;-)

So does anybody besides us use an actual old-fashioned shovel instead of a snow blower or a plow?

Summer?

Drank three-and-a-half quarts of iced tea on Monday. Mmmmm. Maggie went to Leah's to swim. Monday was the hottest it's been since August 2008.

The sprinkler broke. With the heat, the berries and tomatoes are going to need water! Off to the hardware store after chapel.

It's good weather for sitting outdoors in the shade, editing. With a glass of water or iced tea nearby, of course!

Wishful Thinking

Give me spring, lots of spring,
under sunny skies above --
don't fence me in.
Let me be in the wide open spaces that I love
[in summery warmth] --
don't fence me in.



So, will the sheets actually dry before it's dark and time to bring them in? Probably not. Hopefully, though, they'll retain a little of the outdoorsy scent while they finish drying in the machine.

Climate Cycles

Some say that this frigid weather is proof of global warming. Others say this frigid weather is just part of climate patterns that fluctuate over the course of decades and centuries.

No.

I used to buy that. I don't anymore.

This is what God has to say about our belief in global warming. He is mocking our idolatry. This is a weather version of "Not even God could sink the Titanic."

Sunless

Ten days straight without sun. (Well, there were a couple of minutes on Sunday morning during church when a beam peeked through the stained glass.) The 10-day forecast calls for "partly cloudy" next Tuesday. And only Tuesday: the rest is overcast and snow.

If somebody had not eaten for 4-5 days, a person who said, "Gee, you look hungry!" would not be disapproving of the person's discomfort for being hungry.

But what if somebody looks sad and droopy because she has not seen the sun for 10 days? Is she supposed to just chipper-up? Should a person be able to control her body's response to light-deprivation more than she can control her body's reaction to food-deprivation?


I think it's high time to start goofing off with regard to work, and time to start playing the piano more, watching funny movies more, and reading something fun to Maggie.


♫ Oh, Mr Sun, Sun, Mr Golden Sun,
please shine down on me! ♫

♫ Sunshine on my shoulders
makes me happy. ♫